Poet, professor, farmer, environmentalist and biocultural conservationist Jim Veteto will be the Christmas night feature poet for Wednesday Night Poetry at Kollective Coffee+Tea, 110 Central Ave.
The regular open mic session for all poets will begin at 6:30 p.m. today and Veteto will start his feature set at 7:15 p.m., followed by another round of open mic. Admission is free and open to all ages. Doors open at 5 p.m.
Raised in a military family that moved around a lot, Veteto was born in California and lived in Jacksonville for a short time in his youth. He visited his grandparents in Hot Springs, especially in the summertime.
"I grew up fishing and gardening on Lake Hamilton with my grandad, Jim Neff, who is buried with my grandmother, Fletch Neff, on the outskirts of town. My grandad was a World War II hero who grew up as a farmer and my grandmother was a nurse who worked with Bill Clinton's mom in Hot Springs," Veteto said in a news release.
"My mother and retired Air Force pilot father, Jeanne and Benny, live in Hot Springs now and I visit over the winter holidays," he said. "I currently live in Celo (Cherokee: Selu-i, 'Corn Mother's Place'), Giduwagi-Appalachia bioregion in what is currently called 'North Carolina'. I have lived in Corn Mother's Place the past 20 years."
As a military transient youth, Veteto started high school in Frankfurt, Germany and graduated in Georgia. He earned his B.A. in anthropology, English, and environmental ethics from the University of Georgia in 1998, his M.A in Appalachian studies and sustainable development from Appalachian State University in 2005, and his Ph.D. in environmental and ecological anthropology from the University of Georgia in 2010, the release said.
Veteto is an associate professor of Cultural and Environmental Anthropology, Ethnobotany, and Cherokee (ani-Giduwagi) studies at Western Carolina University. In the summertime, he farms at his non-profit, Appalachian Institute for Mountain Studies, growing most of his own food and medicine.
"I run a biocultural conservation and climate catastrophe resilience non-profit at the foot of the Black Mountains and the edge of the Pisgah National Forest," he said. "I spend a lot of time meditating in the woods and botanizing. Most of my heroes are Taoist hermits. I try to live as simply as possible and teach others earth skills. I have developed two unique permaculture approaches that are sometimes reflected in my poetry: biocultural conservation gardening and climate catastrophe gardening."
Veteto was a frequent face at WNP in the days of the Poet's Loft, and remembers fondly late founder Bud Kenny and Dr. Paul Tucker.
"What has inspired my poetry over the past 25 years has been the more-than-human natural world and my experiences hiking, camping, gardening, and foraging," he said in the release. "The work of Gary Snyder has been a huge influence on me (I met him in Hot Springs in 1997 at the Arkansas Poetry Grand Slam), and I read a lot of poetry by Native American poets, Chinese hermits, Taoists, and Buddhists."
"Any friend of Bud Kenny's is a friend of WNP, and we are excited to see what Jim has to share with us," WNP host Kai Coggin said in the release, also giving "a big thank you to Kollective owners Kevin and Agnes for opening their doors for us on Christmas. We have a legacy of never missing a Wednesday to uphold!"
Veteto has featured twice before; once in the '90s, once in the 2000s, and now on the last Wednesday of 2019, three appearances in three different decades, the release said.
This week marks 1,613 consecutive Wednesdays of open mic poetry in downtown Hot Springs since Feb. 1, 1989. Email [email protected] for more information, or to be considered as the featured poet.
Local on 12/25/2019